Pulled Chicken with Caramelized Onions & Kale Chips

I am normally am not so cavalier with my recipes, but I think this dish would be easier to describe in paragraph form than in a traditional list and method form. Basically, I wanted to make pulled chicken sandwiches out of frozen, boneless, skinless chicken breasts. As you can imagine, it is often difficult to imbue these type of chicken with good flavor, particularly for a dish that tastes best when the meat is smoked.

I decided to take the idea of smoking (placing meat over a bed of wet, fragrant wood chips and cooking it with smoke and indirect heat for hours) and translate it into something I can actually do on a week night for dinner. I took a large baking sheet and combined: a few cloves of crushed garlic, a lemon sliced, a small onion roughly chopped, a handful of parsley, a few bay leaves, salt and pepper and a healthy drizzle of olive oil. I placed a grill rack over the aromatics down in the baking pan and placed the chicken on top (seasoned with salt, pepper and olive oil). I concentrated this "pile" of ingredients such that when I laid the chicken breasts over them all that good flavor would waft up and into my chicken. I made an aluminum foil tent over the chicken and baked it for 40 minutes on 350 deg F. 

After letting it rest for a few minutes, I pulled it apart with two forks...it was moist and so flavorful. While I was baking the chicken I tossed an onion in a pan over low heat with some olive oil and let them caramelize. For the sauce, I combined store bought BBQ sauce with some apple cider vinegar, tomato sauce, and a few pinches of everything rub (recipe here). This, to me, makes store bought sauce taste a (tiny) bit more home made... for one it is less sweet when cut with the vinegar and tomato sauce (I have also used ketchup).

A perfect accompaniment to pulled chicken sandwiches is kale chips, literally one of my favorite things to eat. It's like potato chips for those peace, love and granola lovers.

Kale Chips

1 bunch curly kale; de-stemmed, washed and torn into pieces

1 tsp kosher salt

2-3 tsp olive oil

In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients and toss to coat kale pieces. Spread in an even, single layer on a large baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes on 400 deg F until crispy (keep an eye on them so they don't burn!)